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The Challenge of Ancient Cynics to Contemporary World: the Return to the Natural Virtue of Temperance

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The Challenge of Ancient Cynics to Contemporary World: the Return to the Natural Virtue of Temperance ISSN 2029–2236 (print) ISSN 2029–2244 (online) SOCIALINIų MOKSLų STUDIJOS SOCIETAL STUDIES 2011, 3(4), p. 1171–1180. THE CHALLENGE OF ANCIENT CYNICS TO CONTEMPORARY WORLD: THE RETURN TO THE NATURAL VIRTUE OF TEMPERANCE Vytis Valatka Mykolas Romeris University, Institute of Humanities, Department of Philosophy Ateities 20, LT-08303 Vilnius, Lithuania Telephone (+370 5) 271 4628 E-mail [email protected] Received 29 November, 2011; accepted 19 December, 2011 Abstract. This article analyses the most important and interesting aspects of the Ancient Greek Cynicism: diagnosis of the main disease of Ancient Greek civilization and prescribed medicine for that malignant malady. The article also treats the relevance of that medicine to the modern form of above mentioned malady. The article begins with the Ancient Cynics’ severe criticism of the Antique Greece civilization. According to Cynics, civilization annihilates temperance – the main feature and essential virtue of human nature. Furthermore, civilization replaces temperance with surplus of pleasures, regarded as the state of dangerous disease. According to Cynics, there is only one remedy for this disease, namely, the return to the natural radical temperance. The only way leading to that is askesis, i.e. practice for both body and soul. The cult of pleasures is also an evident vice and disease of contemporary commodified civilization. The qualities of this civilization turn radical temperance of Cynicism into a too bitter tablet for the unduly squeamish stomach of a contemporary man. Meanwhile, considerably milder form of temperance, which could promote the sense of proportion in everything, could become a contemporary means of prophylaxis. Similarly, askesis of the Ancient Greek Cynics deprived of its radical dimension could become one of the possible ways to achieve the above mentioned sense of proportion. Socialinių mokslų studijos/Societal Studies ISSN 2029–2236 (print), ISSN 2029–2244 (online) Mykolo Romerio universitetas, 2011 http://www.mruni.eu/lt/mokslo_darbai/SMS/ Mykolas Romeris University, 2011 http://www.mruni.eu/en/mokslo_darbai/SMS/ 1172 Vytis Valatka. The Challenge of Ancient Cynics to Contemporary World: the Return to the Natural Virtue ... Keywords: Ancient Greek Cynicism, surplus of pleasures, principle of flywheel, radical temperance, mild temperance, reduction of consumption, contemporary society. Introduction The philosophical school of Cynicism founded by Antisthenes (445 BC – 365 BC) and Diogenes (412 BC – 323 BC)1 is one of the most original and interesting phenomena of the Ancient Greek philosophy. This school earned fame mostly because of the uprising against the whole Antique Civilization, which was the first total uprising against civilization in the history of western thought. According to Cynics, civilization annihilates radical temperance – the main feature and essential virtue of human nature, leading to a healthy, tranquil and happy life, or in modern words, a high quality life. Moreover, civilization replaces natural temperance with surplus of pleasures, which is especially pernicious to the human nature. The means procuring such a surplus (wealth, fame, renown, power, nobility etc.), are as pernicious as surplus itself, also they become significant marks and objectives within the frames of civilization. The cult of pleasures and tools of their hunting is also an evident vice and disease of contemporary civilization sunken in consumption. As Ecclesiast once said, “nothing under the sun is new, neither is any man able to say: Behold this is new: for it has already gone before in the ages that were before us”2. Therefore it’s highly plausible that diagnosis of antique variant of perpetual malady of civilization and proposed medicine may be also beneficial to a contemporary society. This article attempts to grasp the above mentioned benefit. All the more so, because this benefit still remains insufficiently explored. For, the researchers of Ancient Cynicism (F. Sayre3, D. R. Dudley4, L. Navia5 etc.) usually concentrate on its role and place in Antique Philosophy and Society paying only peripheral attention to relevance of cynical radical temperance to modern global world. 1. Ancient Greek Cynicism: Chase of Pleasures as the Main Disease of Civilization And let us begin with identification of above mentioned malady linking the ancient world with the contemporary one. Why, according to Cynics, the chase of surplus of 1 This philosophical school was founded in Athens at the end of the 5th century BC and ended its existence in 529 AD, when Emperor Justinian I closed all philosophical schools in Athens. 2 Ecclesiastes (Ch. 1, 10). Holy Bible. Old Testament [interactive]. Douay – Rheims version: Reims – Douai, 1582 – 1610 [accessed 20-03-2011]. <http://www.newadvent.org/bible/ecc001.htm> 3 Sayre, F. Diogenes of Synope. A Study on Greek Cynicism. Baltimore: J. H. Furst Company, 1938. 4 Dudley, D. R. History of Cynicism. From Diogenes to the 6th Century A.D. London: Duckworth Publishers, 2007. 5 Navia, L. A. Classical Cynicism: a Critical Study. London: Greenwood Press, 1996. Societal Studies. 2011, 3(4): 1171–1180. 1173 pleasures is such a huge vice and such a complicated disease? Why did Antisthenes maintain: “I’d rather be mad than feel pleasure”6? It is not easy to answer this question. For, although philosophical school of Antique Cynicism existed for about thousand years, although Cynical philosophers even created two important literary forms - diatribe and Menippean satire, no writings of Ancient Cynics survived. Only small fragments of these works and testimonies of the other authors about these works and their contents alone that are still extant. Nevertheless, the extant material entirely suffices to find the reason of severe Cynical criticism of pursuit of pleasures. It is the subtle analysis of pleasures made by Cynics that elucidates that reason. Such an analysis noticed fundamental principle, which could be entitled “the principle of flywheel”. This principle runs like this: “the greater surplus of pleasures a person achieves, the greater surplus of pleasures he desires in the nearest future”. Such a person little by little loses his natural freedom and becomes a total slave to surplus of pleasures, he permanently chases for pleasures, constantly desires them, having no possibility to live out of their reach. Nevertheless, no surplus of pleasures can fully satisfy him, no indulgence in pleasures can procure him with happiness – the permanent state of tranquil and undisturbed soul. Cynical philosophers compare the hunter for pleasures with a man possessed with dropsy: this man is constantly being tortured by unappeasable thirst, and the more abundantly his thirst is satisfied, the greater it grows7. Such a man is always discontented; he is permanently tormented by anxiety and terror that he will never reach so desirable a quantity of pleasures or even, because of a sinister twist of fortune, will lose the pleasures he already possesses. According to cynics, the means for pursuit of pleasures also never suffice. There is no limit and, more to say, there can be no limit either for fame, or for power, or even for comparatively small property. These things never suffice, they are never enough, there is no necessary quantity of them. A man is never satisfied with wealth and fame he possesses, there is no end to striving and strengthening of power, and a libertine never finds the ultimate woman to provide him with pleasures in which he could finally calm down. Therefore, all these tools leading to pleasures are not real values at all – the only status they possess is that of pseudovalues. Moreover, these pseudovalues are extremely detrimental. They mutilate human nature, which, having lost its natural temperance, is no longer capable to reach the desirable state of completeness and blissful serenity. In other words, human nature under conditions of civilization is severely ill. To prevent it from death it is necessary to heal that serious disease. But what kind of treatment is required? Which remedy is capable to overcome this chronic tendency to chase pleasures and their instruments? After Cynics, there is only one medicine for the above mentioned malady. And it is nothing else but return to the natural temperance – the essential human virtue. 6 Diogenes Laertius. Lives of the Eminent Philosophers [interactive]. Harvard University Press, Loeb Classical Library edition, 1925. Volume II, Ch. 6, 3 [accessed 20-02-2011]. <http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Lives_of_ the_Eminent_Philosophers/Book_VI>. 7 Joannis Stobaei Florilegium. Ad manuscriptorum fidem emendavit et supplevit Thomas Gaisford. Volumen I, Ch. 10, 46. Oxonii: E typographeo clarendoniano, 1822, p. 295. 1174 Vytis Valatka. The Challenge of Ancient Cynics to Contemporary World: the Return to the Natural Virtue ... 2. Radical Temperance as Medicine for the Main Disease of Civilization It is important to notice that Cynical philosophers do not mean an ordinary temperance, i. e. the sense of proportion in everything. In fact, they are talking about a radical temperance – the ultimate constraint of human needs. In modern terms such a variant of temperance may be entitled as the ultimate reduction of consumption. According to Cynics, only a minimal quantity of food, drink, sexual pleasures, clothes, shoes and other goods can entirely content human nature. It is a minimal quantity of these goods alone that is capable to provide human being with self-sufficient pleasures not leading to the surplus, which, according to the principle of flywheel, permanently requires more and more new and more intensive pleasures. On the other hand, minimal human needs are the most necessary ones, which actually can be fulfilled always and everywhere. At least they may be easily fulfilled in the living world of Cynics–Ancient Greece, where mild climate and exuberant nature do not allow Cynical philosophers to starve and freeze, where simple barrel can serve as an elementary shelter, as in the case of Diogenes. Hence, the virtue of radical temperance allows Cynical philosopher to confine himself to the most necessary needs, which, on the other hand, can be always satisfied.
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